Fr Robert Hendrickson

Dear Friends in Christ,

This past week we’ve spent a whole lot of time moving. Out of an insufficiency of common sense and a rash belief in the value of saving money I insisted that we do it all ourselves rather than hire movers. My belief is that I can pay others to break our stuff or we can break it ourselves! But, I have learned that I am older now than when I first developed that philosophy — and it may need some amendments based on lived experience!

Anyhow, as we arrived with the final load there was that inevitable moment of relief as we dropped that last bundle onto the ground. Then we just needed to have a seat and rest. Of course every seat in the new place had stuff in it! Piles everywhere! Amused by the moment I took a picture and posted it online.

There we were, having just finished one haul, and now a new round of work stood before us. Spiritually, that’s how this pandemic has felt. We seem to be reaching the end of one haul and now some new work is ahead of us. Like with moving, it’s familiar work, in that it’s not exactly new. We need to pray, worship, serve, and more. But it all does still feel a bit strange despite its familiarity.

We’re moving back into church. We’re worshiping together. We’re looking at next steps in normalcy. But it does make me wonder if there isn’t more work to be done — or at least done differently — before we can quite rest in this new place.

For example, I’ve noticed a bit of an uptick in a kind of generalized anxiety. It comes out in some meetings, in a few emails, in a couple of phone calls. Everybody is both excited and exhausted at the same time. Given how little time we’ve had together, in person especially, over the last year and a half, it makes me realize how so much that might get talked about in a hallway chat after a service gets a chance to just kind of sit and grow. People can stew a bit but haven’t had the chance to just chat in those many small ways that make relationships meaningful and real — and that iron out wrinkles before they become cracks.

So even as we come together I think there’s more work to do. But it’s familiar work. I think we need to pray, sing, and worship together before we have too many discussions about budgets and administration and the like. We need a chance to know each other again, hear what’s been happening in our lives, share what’s been new and what’s been hard. Christians don’t gather as communities of strangers — we gather as the Body of Christ. We are knit together into a common life to share one another’s burdens and to lend one another hope.

As we settle into our new house, we will be doing lots of work. We will be moving furniture around, giving some stuff away, and making it possible to sit on chairs. We will also be figuring out what it means to be a family in this new place. What was moving like? Do you like your new room? Is it scary at night? Where do we keep the snacks now? Even if our life in this new place is familiar, its routines are upended and we will need time to find a new rhythm.

Even as we are back at church there will need to be some time when we just are patient with the inevitable stops and starts as we remember where we are again — and take stock of who and how we are together in this new old place.

Fr Robert